As we move closer to the passage of the economic stimulus package I thought I would take some time to post a few thoughts on the issue. I realize that for many it is a subject that prompts some pretty strong emotions and I would like to start by (at the risk of sounding like a broken record) remind everyone of a few basic civilities.
To begin with pretty much everyone is in favor of the economic recovery happening as quickly as possible. I know that it is easy to just assume that the other side is somehow opposed to good things or that they want everyone to fail. This makes it easier to support your own viewpoint even when you have doubts.
But the fact is that just because you oppose the stimulus package does not mean you oppose the recovery, it simply means that you have doubts about whether the package will succeed. Similarly just because you support the proposal does not mean you are on a secret agenda to impose socialism on the United States, it just means that you feel that this level of stimulus is required to recover the economy.
I also think it is somewhat arrogant for people on either side of the debate to say that they know how this proposal will pan out. While television may provide us with leaders who are Nobel prize winning economists with perfect prescience the real world is full of normal people who can’t possibly know what will happen.
Indeed in this very debate both sides have cited the experience of Japan in the 1990’s to show why they are correct. Some contending that their efforts at stimulus failed because they did not spend enough while others suggest that the problem is that a large level of spending simply can’t solve the problems.
As for my own views, I find myself somewhat on the fence when it comes to the current package. I do recognize that it is very important for us to get the economy going and that to do so will require action by the government. I do think that some tax cuts are important to give businesses and individuals money to put into the economy. But I also recognize that we also need some immediate infusions of cash into the system and that this is going to require spending on the part of the government.
My concern rests over the level of spending and tax cuts and whether nearly $ 1,000,000,000,000 being added to our debt is going to cause more problems that it will solve. Just for the record I wasn’t happy when Republicans were in control and they ‘tinkled’ away many billions of dollars and by the same token I am not really happy now. Certainly some of the spending during the Bush years was necessary just as some of the spending is necessary now, but I think we need to be very careful about how we spend it.
In that vein I would hope that the spending is going to be directed at things that will 1) really work to stimulate the economy and 2) are truly necessary programs rather than pork projects designed to get votes. We certainly have plenty of infrastructure problems that could be solved with a stimulus package, thereby serving both the goal of helping the economy as well as repairing the long term neglect of our roads, bridges, etc.
The problem is that when I read about what is contained in this bill I am not sure about many of the proposals that have been included in the bill. For example the bill includes more than $ 1 billion in funding for the Census, more than $ 2 billion to study global warming, $ 10 billion in programs to promote carbon offsets and billions upon billions in local pork projects to build roads and bridges to nowhere, indoor rainforests and the like. None of these programs really look to stimulate the economy and many are pure waste.
On the perhaps necessary but not really stimulating to the economy side we have $ 80 billion in grants to the states to help with their budgets and $ 90 billion in Medicare grants. It would seem to me that such spending could be included in separate legislation which could be examined on its own merit.
My personal desire would be for the same group of moderates who worked on the bill already would get back together and design a proposal which would slash both the tax cut and spending provisions down to what is pure stimulus and leave the rest for future debate. This would allow us to quickly get out a jolt to the economy while taking our time on the long term
This is not to say that I am wholly naive about how spending decisions are made in Washington. This is the Congress, and as someone once said, if pro is the opposite of con then is progress the opposite of Congress. No spending package that comes out of the legislative process is going to be entirely satisfactory to anyone.
Further, as a fiscal conservative I am always going to be reticent about incurring more debt and I also probably lean more towards tax cuts than spending since I tend to trust the guy next door more than I am going to trust the guy in Washington DC when it comes to how to spend money.
As I ponder the situation I find myself alternating between reluctant support of the bill as being the best we will be able to put together versus resigned opposition for the same reasons. In the end I suspect that, if a member of Congress, I would probably come down on the side of support simply because I think something has to be done and we probably are not going to get any further in terms of changes or improvements.
But it would not be a particularly happy decision and somehow I suspect that there are few members of Congress truly happy with the final package. That perhaps is the saddest part of the whole process.